


do but keep the peace

by Carmarthen



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Science Fiction, Sleep Deprivation, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 06:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4553424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tybalt hadn't asked Benvolio to drag him into the escape pod, to a planet with too much sky, with people he's pretty sure mostly hate him.</p><p>(Hungarian musical canon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	do but keep the peace

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a science fiction 'verse where the _Verona_ is a colony ship traveling through deep space, but there's something wrong that Admiral Escalus doesn't want getting out. Romeo, Julia, Tybalt, Mercutio, Benvolio, and Rosa manage to take an escape pod and are picked up by a Mantuan cruiser. Whether I'll ever write all that plot leadup...well, odds are slim. But hopefully this stands on its own well enough.
> 
> Somehow I tend to go weirdly sweet with this pairing. Proshot Tybalt, KMM Benvolio.

"Shove over, longshanks," Benvolio said, crawling into Tybalt's bunk before he could protest that there wasn't room. There was, unfortunately, room, although not without their legs or shoulders pressing together whenever one of them shifted. "Well, this is a cozy nest for brooding, I guess."

"I'm not brooding," said Tybalt. It didn't count as brooding if he got vertigo in any room with a ceiling too high to touch, walls too far apart. Going outside was out of the question; he'd realized that as soon as he looked out the window into the hospital garden, where Julia had been laughing as freely as if she were still a child. The Mantuan sky was blue and distant and so much more unimaginably terrifying than it had ever been in vids. Nothing, not the blackness of space, not Mercutio grinning at him with blood in his teeth and a blade in his hand, had ever terrified him as much as that sky.

It was understanding his limits, and hadn't they told him that his entire life? There were things he could do and things he couldn't, and the sooner he accepted that, the—

"Is that what they told you?" The look on Benvolio's face was, if not quite pity, much closer than Tybalt had ever wanted to see.

Tybalt tried to muster a glare, inwardly panicked that he'd spoken aloud, but Benvolio didn't even pretend to flinch, just squeezed in closer and caught Tybalt's chin in his fingers, turning his face towards the light. "You look like shit, Capulet. When was the last time you slept?"

His thoughts were fuzzy, the hours blurring together into a formless haze. He'd slept a few hours two—three?—days earlier. Did that count? And sometimes he dozed off a little between doctors and therapists and Julia's dutiful, awkward visits, with Romeo hovering outside the door like he wasn't sure if coming in would make things worse. The thought made laughter, glass-edged and bitter, well up in his throat. He swallowed it down again with difficulty. "I don't know.” And then, because Benvolio was still too close, his fingers too gentle against Tybalt's jaw, "Shouldn't you be bothering one of your friends?"

"None of them are weirdos who shut themselves in their rooms and don't sleep," Benvolio said, making it sound affectionate, like a joke, like _they_ were friends. "They’re worried too, you know.”

"What, did you draw the short straw? Make sure crazy Tybalt hasn't lost the rest of his mind in there, can't have wasted the pod space."

"To be fair," Benvolio said, "Mercutio doesn't give much of a shit. But the rest of us do. Julia cares because you're her cousin; Romeo cares because she does, and because he’s—he’d be your friend if you let him, you know. Rosa cares because it pisses Mercutio off."

The obvious question dried up on Tybalt’s tongue. Benvolio had always been arm-in-arm with Mercutio, his words nearly as cutting even if he accompanied them with blown kisses and flirtatious looks instead of blows.

He shouldn't have pulled Tybalt into the escape pod. The question was when he would realize that, too. The bigger question was why Tybalt cared at all.

"They have real roses in the garden, you know,” Benvolio said, apparently settled in for the long haul, even though every time either of them breathed their thighs brushed together. His legs were trembling with tension, Tybalt realized, and forced himself to relax. If Benvolio wasn’t bothered, he wouldn’t be either. "I guess you can eat the fruits, but they grow them for the flowers, because they smell nice. Can you believe it? I can’t describe it. It’s nothing like that perfume your aunt….”

His aunt, whom he hadn’t saved. He knew Julia still held out hope that everyone they’d left behind on that deathtrap of a ship had survived somehow, but Tybalt hadn’t believed in miracles for a very long time.

"Ah,” Benvolio said, suddenly awkward. "I’ll bring you one, if you like. Since you can’t go.…”

"You offered me a kiss once," Tybalt said, the words tripping over each other like they couldn't wait to escape him. "Before.” It had been at some party, Benvolio flushed with moonshine Rosa had made out of God only knew what, and Tybalt hadn’t even bothered to dignify it with a response. It was best not to give Montagues ammunition. But—

Benvolio blinked at him, all teasing chatter silenced—Tybalt shouldn't have said anything. It was an old joke, no longer relevant, and he'd never been any good at jokes. He'd just thought for a mad moment that it might help, touching someone like that, that it might make him feel more real. 

"Not quite," said Benvolio, shifting a little in the bunk, his expression unreadable. His hand brushed against Tybalt's wrist. "Hey.”

"Forget it, I—"

"Technically," said Benvolio, reaching out so slowly that Tybalt hadn't noticed until their fingers were already entwined, until Benvolio gently pressed his hand back against the wall, leaning in so close that all Tybalt had to do was move forward a centimeter. "I _asked_ you for a kiss."

Kissing Benvolio wasn't like kissing a girl at one of the old parties on the colony ship, after he'd had enough maryherb to quiet the buzzing in his head, and he could just go along with whatever they wanted, easy and soft. It also wasn't like kissing Mercutio, a bruising clash of lips and teeth, the faint taste of blood in his mouth, something he’d rather forget.

He banged his head on the bunk and swore, his head throbbing, and then Benvolio pulled him down again, laughing into his mouth. It took a few tries to find the right angle, but when he did it was easy, like coming back to a home he’d never known, neither a capitulation nor a fight.

He didn’t want to stop, couldn’t stop himself from following with his lips when Benvolio broke the kiss at last, eyes closed so he could hold the moment a little longer.

“Come on, this will be more comfortable.” Benvolio tugged and prodded at him until he was lying down and Benvolio could squeeze up next to him, against the wall, still so close Tybalt could feel his breath when he spoke.

"You don’t have to come outside. Just come to dinner tonight. If Mercutio’s too much of a shit I’ll smack him for you. Think about it.”

“Okay,” he said, unable to make his fingers uncurl from where Benvolio still held them, loosely clasped between them.

“Get some sleep first so you don’t terrify the children,” Benvolio said, and kissed him again, more chastely this time, but for the first time in days Tybalt could feel the exhaustion pulling him inexorably under, into the warm darkness.


End file.
